For Our Children's Sake

‘What do you think will happen?’ Lucy asked, putting down her fork carefully.

‘I don’t know—and I don’t like it. I hate having no control over what other people are deciding about my life.’

Her face was a picture of worry, her dark eyes clouded with anxiety, and her hand went up to pull nervously at her hair. He didn’t like to do this to her but she needed to know. He had to make sure she understood exactly what they were facing.

‘What do you hope happens?’

Dominic shook his head. ‘It’s an impossible question to answer. At first I just wanted to go on with Abby as before. Then I wanted to keep Abby but maybe hear about my natural daughter. Not too often. Just once in a while. Enough to know she was all right.’

‘And now?’

‘Now I want it all.’

Lucy shifted in her chair, her face uncharacteristically pale. ‘You want both girls?’

‘In a way. I—’

‘You can’t do that—’

‘Hear me out, Lucy. I’m not suggesting I sue for custody.’

She shook her head, obviously bemused. ‘Then what?’

This was it then. An irrevocable decision. Once made there could be no going back. Dominic leant forward. ‘I want you to marry me.’

The silence echoed around the table. For a moment Lucy wondered whether she’d heard him correctly. It wasn’t possible, was it? His eyes were watching her steadily, waiting for an answer. Colour flooded into her ashen face.

‘But I don’t know you!’

His voice remained steady. ‘I don’t know you either. Except through Abby. I want Abby to have everything—and that means you.’

For the girls. He wanted to marry her for the girls. Lucy held her bottom lip between her teeth, her stomach twisting and turning. What he was suggesting was outrageous. How could you marry someone you didn’t know and knew nothing about?

His voice continued inexorably. ‘When I think about a future hearing just snippets about Chloe I can’t bear it. I want it all.’ He paused. ‘And the obvious way to achieve that is a marriage of convenience.’

Lucy looked at him in complete horror. She felt as if the floor had just disappeared beneath her and she was falling down into an alternative reality. This couldn’t be happening.

He’d been her rock. Since she’d first discovered the mix-up Dominic had been what had kept her standing. He’d understood how she was feeling, understood the unmitigated agony of living with the secret knowledge that your child wasn’t really yours. She felt slightly betrayed. Angry.

‘Real people don’t do things like that.’

‘Think about it. We could be there for the girls. For as long as they need us. While the courts argue about how much contact the birth parents should have we can solve it all in one clean sweep. They can have us both.’

He made it sound so reasonable—and yet it wasn’t. It wasn’t. She wanted everything to be right for the girls. Wanted to make life perfect for Chloe. To know Abby was happy. But marriage? How could he suggest spending the rest of his life with someone he’d only met for the second time today?

Her fingers played nervously with the edge of the starched white tablecloth. What did he mean by a ‘marriage of convenience’ anyway? Did he imagine he’d share her bed?

‘Marriage?’

‘In name only.’

He could see the questions whizzing across her face. If it hadn’t been so serious he would have found it funny. He watched the moment arrive when she decided there was one question she really had to ask.

‘No sex?’

‘Absolutely. What I want is a mother for Abby, and I want to be a father for Chloe. This is about parenting.’

She went to pick up her wine glass and then stopped. ‘Why marriage?’

‘Because it’s a sign of commitment. Then I can formally adopt Chloe and you can adopt Abby. If the court allows it. Personally, I think they’re going to breathe a sigh of relief that everything’s worked out so smoothly.’

This time she did take a sip of wine. He watched the nervous flutter of her hand as she replaced the glass carefully back on the table. At least she hadn’t said an outright no.

‘You want to be married until the girls are eighteen?’

He shook his head. ‘As long as they need us to be. It has to be as normal as we can make it. At some point in the future we’re going to have to tell them the complete truth, and I want them to be secure in having two parents who love them and are there for them.’

Again the questions flitted across her expressive face. Her hand went to her casually swept-up hair and fiddled with a strand hanging across her cheek. ‘What happens if you meet someone else? Or I do?’

‘It hasn’t happened to me in the last six years. I hardly think it’s likely to happen now. I don’t ever want to love anyone again. I can’t take the risk of anything hurting that much again.’ He had her attention now. It was in the way she leant forward and her hand stilled on her hair. ‘We have a common goal. It will be enough to build a good life for ourselves—and for the girls.’

‘And where will we live?’

Was that a yes? He’d shocked her, unquestionably, but she could obviously see the advantages of a marriage of convenience. ‘If we decide to go ahead with it, that’s all open for discussion. It’s handy for me to be based in London, and I’ve a big house there, so that’s an option, but it’s not a necessity. Are you fixed here?’

‘My family’s here. Friends.’

Memories, he realised, watching the way she bit on her bottom lip. ‘The details can be worked out later. In principle, what do you think? Will you marry me?’

Lucy didn’t know what to say. What to think, even. Could she do it? Marry a perfect stranger? To give Chloe security and get to know Abby? And then she gave a half smile. Perfect? Had she really thought that? He was perfect—almost. Tall, handsome—in a clever kind of way, rather than a chocolate box model kind of thing. Gorgeous hands, eyes you could trust, and a committed father as well. It was an impressive list. But he didn’t love her and she didn’t love him.

It was a big but. If she’d been young and impressionable he’d have been someone she might have dated—if it hadn’t been for Michael. There never had been anyone for her but Michael and never would be. People only had one great love in a lifetime and she’d already had hers. It had been fantastic—and now it was over.

All she had in her life were memories—and Chloe. Lucy looked out at a small family cruiser passing outside on the canal. A mum, a dad and two little girls. She bit her lip. She could do that for Chloe. For Abby. If there was no possibility of her falling in love again she could commit herself to this new family unit. The girls could have everything. She looked back at Dominic.

‘I’ll do it. Theoretically, if we can work it all out, I’ll do it. For the girls, I’ll marry you.’

She couldn’t believe she’d said the words that would commit her to a lifetime without love. It seemed a travesty of everything she’d shared with Michael. He wouldn’t have wanted her to spend the rest of her life alone in every way that mattered. Yet Michael couldn’t have known what would face her.

Dominic leant forward. ‘We can make this work, Lucy. I know we can.’

She could feel her eyes begin to fill up with tears and she blinked furiously. When she’d agreed to have dinner with Dominic to discuss the future she hadn’t dreamed the conversation would take this turn. It certainly wasn’t something that usually happened to a widowed mother of one who only wanted a peaceful life. ‘What do we do now?’

Watching Dominic, she noticed a change. The tension had left him and in its place was a sense of purpose. She had the strangest sensation of being in a bubble. Everything was muffled, it was slower, it was…inevitable.

‘Are you working at the moment? Apart from on a casual basis with your mother?’ She knew she’d shaken her head when she heard him say, ‘That simplifies things.’

Did it? Nothing seemed very simple to her. She could see every obstacle. She knew nothing about him. Not even what he did for a job, she recognised bleakly. Some kind of lecturer, perhaps? It hardly mattered.